Yes, they have. But a) I've never argued the Khans/Dragons cards were well designed; b) Those are part of a five-card cycle, not . . . however many cards are going to be in Forgotten Realms; c) Each of those cards' modes has the same wording, either "Khans" or "Dragons," rather than a whole bunch of distinct subtitles that each appear on a very small number of cards (or only one); d) The Siege cycle applies immutable changes to permanents rather than representing one-time effects, meaning that using distinct wording actually makes sense in the context of the cards' existing. Wizards started using counters to represent these changes to permanents because it gets difficult to keep track without them; e) Wizards has claimed in the past to be moving toward a more straightforward indication of how cards work so we don't end up with Chains of Mephistopheles-type nonsense, where the Oracle wording breaks its own rules.Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit
I'm not surprised you brought up the Conspiracy cards. This isn't a dig at you, but it appears the templating fooled you, too: "Will of the Council" (and "Tempting Offer," and maybe other stuff) is like the other italicized keywords I mentioned before, not a nickname for a distinct effect that no other card has. There also isn't a distinct, separate card called "Will of the Council" that does something different from the italic effect on that cycle of cards.
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
So:
A)
B) That cycle and others.
C) This isn't true: They're anchor words and there's more than just one set of them
D) That isn't true.
E) Replacing the dot on a modular spell/ability with an italicized word/phrase is still straightforward, and even if you treated it as an ability word it doesn't break oracle because the rules for flavor rules are already here in that there are none because Italic text has never had any rules meaning whatsoever. Which is why Ability words always have to have their condition and meaning written out after them.
Seems like arguing just to argue.
I watched the card, found it funny because of the flavor text that reminded me my youth a bit and proceed to analyze the card and understood directly that i had to choose one of X modes, each mode being clearly described. less than one second total.
If someone mumbles any card with saying explicitely what he chooses when the spell resolves, then it's not a problem of design, it's a problem of a person. speak clearly. and there is no problem. "I cast dawnbringer cleric, choosing cure wounds: I gain 2 life". Hard? hell no. Confusing???? Why? it's not confusing it's an easy template.
I think your underestimating the basic MTG player. If someone reads that card and doesn't know what it does immediately, i doubt highly that it would be interresting to play against.
That's pretty cheap and works with Vial.
Edit: It also works flawlessly with Grief and the other Evoke creatures.
I like the keywords for abilities. Fuck it man. It's cool. Creature abilities with keywords makes it feel like they're casting a spell. We kind of already do this internally, right - if a creature has an ability that can deal 2 damage to a target we tend to say "this creature can Shock a target" or even declaring its ability we'll turn it sideways and say "Shock your Goblin Piledriver". At least the people around here always have. YMMV.
Something about just reading the "cost : effect" formatting has always felt very dry and uninspired to me. Especially when they have a perfectly good format for abilities in actual cards; one thing I've never understood is why the "timing" of abilities is always after all the text when on cards it comes before the effect. A card displays its name at the top, cost in the corner, spell type in the middle, spell effect in the box, and finally at the bottom the stats (if it's a creature).
Abilities could read similarly start-to-end instead of top-to-bottom, idk why they reinvented the wheel for abilities. Like imagine something like "Unearth[Sorcery] (reminder text)" or like if Grim Lavamancer said "
, exile two cards in your graveyard [Instant]: deal 2 damage to any target". Less text, less RTFC fail, makes abilities read more or less like miniature cards.
So one thing I have disliked about the "...when you could play a sorcery" and "...as a sorcery" templating is that there are cards that alter when you could do just that but don't affect these cards. (like Vedalkan Orrey). Also, if you're activating an ability as a sorcery it's a sorcery right and I can Envelop it right? (Nope, because it's sorcery speed not actually a sorcery)I like the keywords for abilities. Fuck it man. It's cool. Creature abilities with keywords makes it feel like they're casting a spell. We kind of already do this internally, right - if a creature has an ability that can deal 2 damage to a target we tend to say "this creature can Shock a target" or even declaring its ability we'll turn it sideways and say "Shock your Goblin Piledriver". At least the people around here always have. YMMV.
Something about just reading the "cost : effect" formatting has always felt very dry and uninspired to me. Especially when they have a perfectly good format for abilities in actual cards; one thing I've never understood is why the "timing" of abilities is always after all the text when on cards it comes before the effect. A card displays its name at the top, cost in the corner, spell type in the middle, spell effect in the box, and finally at the bottom the stats (if it's a creature).
Abilities could read similarly start-to-end instead of top-to-bottom, idk why they reinvented the wheel for abilities. Like imagine something like "Unearth
SO I would make a "fast" and a "slow" speed and anything that changed the normal timing would say "Activate slowly" or "This may be played quickly" or whatever was needed to decouple timing for card types.
Activate slowly would be a cruel joke for enabling slow play.
Envelop does specifically say "target sorcery spell", so I think that might just be an rtfc players encounter once and hopefully not again.
On the whole though I agree that the timing indicators in this game kinda blow and lead to misunderstandings like the one you're talking about. That's one of those things that I kinda agree with MaRo on, where he suggested that if he could time travel and "fix" a game component it would be to make Instant a super type on cards or something - so you could have "Instant Creature" or "Instant Sorcery" instead of having to give things Flash.
Ok, Orcus is just a freaking stupid card. Mass removal OR mass reanimation that grants haste on a 5/3 flyer for 4+X mana? That's nuts.
I doubt it will see any play in modern or older competitive formats. People don't need extra value for extra cost on sweepers, and paying full mana cost for reanimation effects isn't great.
I think the 4+X cost is prohibitive.
I'm less convinced. For six mana that's a 5/3 trample flyer plus a hasty Tarmogoyf or hasty SFM or something. That's a whole lotta value, and doesn't include how strong the modality is. I mean, I wouldn't run 4x in Legacy, but as a 1 of topline threat? If I was in those colors absolutely. I mean, something like Jund with ramp (Ignoble Hierarch) or something it's got a lot of applicability.
Feels like an easy 3x in Modern lists. Even just the base 4 mana double evasion 5/3 body is a pretty decent value.
Saying that MtG includes multiple cycles throughout its history doesn't address the fact that this set is just word salad. Nobody's saying there aren't other cards or cycles that work in unique ways throughout the game's corpus; I'm saying that this set, specifically, has about eight years' worth of new keywords. Except they're not keywords. Only they're formatted like keywords.So:
A)
B) That cycle and others.
C) This isn't true: They're anchor words and there's more than just one set of them
D) That isn't true.
E) Replacing the dot on a modular spell/ability with an italicized word/phrase is still straightforward, and even if you treated it as an ability word it doesn't break oracle because the rules for flavor rules are already here in that there are none because Italic text has never had any rules meaning whatsoever. Which is why Ability words always have to have their condition and meaning written out after them.
Your response to my point E furthers my criticism of this type of formatting and card design. You don't want to have extraneous text shoehorned into rules/explanatory sections of cards, and it appears they haven't learned from literal decades of trial and error.
So I've worked in game design a little bit. One of the most fundamentally important things to do when building a game is to maximize clarity and eliminate ambiguity. Ambiguity causes confusion. You can blame players for getting confused, but that doesn't incentivize them to play the game. And it's up to the game designer to present the game's mechanics clearly and completely but without unnecessary or extraneous (read: distracting) information. As I said above, we've already got a game with multiple widely divergent card frames, with a one-shot card type (which really should've been a supertype: Tribal, anyone?), and errata that totally change the way cards work from what's written on the cards. They're not streamlining or fixing any of this when they just barf a ton of unique information that both looks like rules text even though it isn't and also, at least sometimes, carries the same names as cards that already exist and do entirely different things.
And yeah, maybe I am underestimating the basic MtG player [EDIT: Your words, not mine]. But when you hear people mispronounce "prelate" or "augur" enough times, you start to think that just assuming people will suss out complicated information themselves is a stretch.
The odds are that these cards will play adequately well most of the time. I'm not criticizing the company for producing a non-functioning product, because I don't think it is that. I'm criticizing the company for displaying regressing competence in the design of its product. What are new players going to do when they pick up Forgotten Realms precons (assuming they're even making those)? What will be their impressions of the game? How much of a headache will all the Magic Missiles and Mordekainen's Magnificent Mansions cause, only to actually mean nothing for the play of the game? Will those players' impressions dovetail with what the rest of the game outside this single expansion looks like? No. Emphatically no. That's not the fault of the players, and it's such an easy fix that the fact it wasn't addressed makes the company look dilettantish.
EDIT: Spot the monumental rookie mistake in the recently-spoiled The Deck of Many Things.
I'm inclined to think the mana cost is too high for this to be really excellent in Legacy, but I think it'll make waves in other formats, especially Commander. I do think it's worth considering as a sideboard card for Storm because it can put down a curveball threat AND wipe out a bunch of X/1 or X/2 hatebears, but I don't know that that's better than what the deck's already doing, and I don't think what the deck's already doing is good enough in a world with a trillion lockout one-drops, the London mulligan, and All Spells as a competitor. EDIT: And seriously speaking, hitting five or six mana early enough to make it worthwhile is a big ask if you're getting taxed.
Last edited by Ronald Deuce; 07-01-2021 at 04:32 PM.
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
I can't wait for dice rolling to become the new tournament meta. (I guess judges now have to be dice experts. Sorry, judges.)
I feel like this is a couple steps away from being a really clever chain of cards . . . .
Plus
Seems like a terrible combo but a fun one - with each token increasing the chances of better tokens until you get infinite pixies?
Yep. Roughly 1/7 chance to go infinite. They had to 0-day errata the ability to a "may."
This will work well with village rites and archfiend's vessel
That's pretty cheap and works with Vial.
Edit: It also works flawlessly with Grief and the other Evoke creatures.
There are probably plenty of ways to set this up. Even killing your opponent's creatures - either via a spell or combat.
Hmm is that right - what are the chances for 20 power? Lets say you have the Mage in play and cast Sprite and then attack . . . your first chance is 0.4375 [Using "(A or B) = p(A) + p(B) – p(A and B)" so X = .25+.25-(.25*.25) - do I have that right?] Second chance is .73 (X = .25+.25+.25-(.25*.25*.25)). Repeat 20 times and then multiply them all together? How does that work? By my count once you hit five sprites you are guaranteed a critical so . . . the odds are .4375*.73*.996 or .31 for "infinite". Still too low to base a strategy around but fun to think about.
of course...but u wanna net some cards too.
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